


The First and the Last

by Jaelijn



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Emotional Hurt, Episode Style, Gen, Heavy Angst, I feel like I also ought to warn for phoney computer science, Season/Series 02, and malpractice?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 22:45:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13797927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaelijn/pseuds/Jaelijn
Summary: Avon is convinced to participate in a groundbreaking computer science project - science for science's sake, for a change. Or is it?





	The First and the Last

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know where this one came from; it's certainly a little different - it's one of those "weekend fics", that I start on one day and then not stop writing until it's done, the last of which being "Gestures of Idleness." Since I struggle to finish things lately, here you have it right away, this Avon-centric gen thing and its feels. 
> 
> Warning for more or less made up science and I should probably also warn for suicide - though I'll say right away that it's not Avon or any major B7 characters and it's... complicated. But "Heavy Angst" probably covers it.

Avon unbuckled his gun and threw it down with disgust. He directed his glare towards it, unwilling to look at Blake. “So it _was_ a trap.”

Blake’s gun joined his on the ground with a clatter. “Does saying _I told you so_ make you feel better, Avon?”

“Not particularly.” Avon looked up again, facing the guns pointed at them. They didn’t look like Federation troopers, but then all of them probably looked like ordinary people without the uniforms and masks.

One of them scuttled forward to collect their weapons; another, probably emboldened by their disarmament, jabbed the muzzle of his gun sharply into Avon’s rips. He stood his ground, unwilling to let them see him flinch. So _stupid_ , to have come here at all. He had _known_ it was a trap from the first, and yet…

“Don’t move,” their leader warned sharply, taking a step forward between his men. “Yes, it was a trap, Avon,” he went on, “but not for Blake.” His gaze travelled to Blake. “You can go.”

It was almost worth it, just to see the surprise on Blake’s face. “What!”

“I’m not interested in politics, or in doing the work of the Federation justice department. It’s Avon I want.”

“You could have asked nicely,” Avon spat, masking, he hoped, his own surprise.

“I don’t think so. Leave, Blake, I want nothing to do with you. Oh, and take Avon’s bracelet with you. He won’t need it.”

Taking his cue, the man behind Avon wrenched Avon’s arm sharply backwards and pushed his wrist up his spine. Fumbling fingers unclasped the teleport bracelet, then the thug held it out to Blake loosely, keeping a firm hold of Avon’s arm.

Blake, predictably, ignored it. “I won’t leave without Avon,” he said, and the leader of their captors near enough rolled his eyes. Avon knew the feeling.

“Oh, I don’t have time for this. Get rid of him.”

The man behind Blake sprang into action, efficiently pressing a piece of cloth over Blake’s mouth and nose – drenched with a sedative, from the shortness of Blake’s struggle. Avon barely had time to jerk against the hands holding him before the same thing happened to him.

 

He woke to fuzzy thoughts and a dry throat – side effects of the sedative, no doubt. His surroundings didn’t quite qualify as a side effect of having been sedated, but they were a depressingly logical consequence: a cell, a perfect square of perhaps four by four meters. There was no visible door, but if Avon had to guess, he’d place it either in the ceiling, or in the wall opposite the sleeping platform he had woken up on. There was the stale-smelling foam mattress, its blue the only real colour in the room, and a retractable sanitary unit to Avon’s right, and not much else. They’d left him most of his clothes, though his boots were gone – and with them the small probe that could serve as a weapon or lockpick.

Avon sighed, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He scanned the ceiling for cameras – they weren’t hard to spot, but well out of reach. It wasn’t a Federation isolation cell, but it looked just as inescapably secure.

Avon explored the walls, as far as he could reach, and found a simple protein and drinks dispenser alongside the sanitary facilities, but nothing else. He was sitting on the bed, thinking about whether or not it was worth risking drugs or suppressants in the water to ease his aching throat when the voice sounded, so loud and immediate that the speaker might as well have been standing right next to him.

“Don’t worry, Avon. You won’t be in here very long.” It was the same man – the leader of the people who had captured them, and Avon still couldn’t place him, even without his potentially misleading appearance.

Anything he could say would volunteer information to whoever they were – not petty criminals, surely, if they controlled a facility such as this cell. Avon didn’t think he was on a ship now, but he could have been moved half across the galaxy while sedated and never know it. Convention suggested that this wasn’t the _only_ cell – but there were always exceptions.

“Do you have nothing to say?”

Avon clenched his hands, knowing that even that futile gesture would be picked up by the cameras. “What happened to Blake?”

“Nothing. We left him somewhere safe to sleep through the sedation. I expect he will have returned to the _Liberator_ by now, none the worse for wear.”

“Generous of you.”

“I have what I wanted.”

“Me.”

“Yes.”

“Why should I believe you?”

The man chuckled, somehow managing not to sound entirely like the insane Federation officials Avon had encountered over the years. The laugh did not even cause a crackle in the transmission – like the cell, the equipment seemed to be of excellent quality. “I would be disappointed if you did,” the man said, “but it _is_ the truth.”

“The price on Blake’s head is higher than the one on mine.”

“We aren’t bounty hunters.”

“Is that right.”

“You will see soon enough. We’ll speak again, Avon.”

Avon heard the communication circuit closing, but he didn’t give in to the illusion of being alone again. Surveillance was a perfidious thing.

He wasn’t given a chance to go back to his futile contemplation – there was a sliding sound, and a panel withdrew in the wall in front of him, revealing a computer console. Avon stared at it, suspicious. It didn’t seem to do anything, but with any luck a computer could get him into the system – could knock out the cameras, open all the doors. Surely his captors weren’t that naïve?

There had to be a reason why the console had been revealed to him now – the timing was too fitting to be coincidental. It might well be a novel torture device, and even if it was what it pretended to be – did Avon really want to reveal the extent of his skill, knowing that he was watched? That the console was likely monitored, that it might not be linked up to anything at all?

But it wasn’t as though he had very many alternatives. There was no escaping the cell, and Avon wasn’t one to trustingly put his fate into the hands of Blake and the rest, who might or might not be trying to rescue him. _He_ wouldn’t have.

He lasted all of a few minutes before approaching the console. It didn’t hurt or kill him when he activated it, but it didn’t give him a great deal of access, either. Without his tools, he couldn’t take it apart – and all it would show him was a coding problem.

He could solve it, of course. It wasn’t even particularly challenging – a standard exam question that even in his university days he could have solved in his sleep. But if he did…

On the other hand, his captor must already know that he knew his way around computers, else why would he have posed the challenge? It was in Avon’s Federation file, after all, and there were the papers he had published – still out there, under his name, a reminder to the Federation populace that even the cleverest could fall deep if they opposed the system. Avon disliked being made into a symbol, and he disliked being used as a tool.

It seemed ever more likely that the reason these people had been interested in _him_ , and not at all in Blake, had something to do with his skill with computers. Under different circumstances, Avon might have been flattered. If he refused to solve the problem, or pretended to fail – well, they might kill him, or decide to let him rot. If he solved it, he was collaborating with his captors. But at least he wouldn’t be giving them any new information – the exam questions had no useful practical application, or at least none had been discovered yet. They functioned on a purely theoretical level, based on the logic of a system that didn’t exist, and the answers were well known in Avon’s professional circles. There were no teleportation secrets here, no information about Zen or Orac, or anything else that the Federation would have wanted to extract from him.

Avon turned away in disgust, pacing the small cell. He didn’t really have a choice, and he knew it. It didn’t make him like it any more.

He gave in on another front and fetched himself something to drink. It tasted like plain water, but most suppressants were perfectly tasteless. Avon sat on the bed, staring at the console, and waiting for something to happen.

Nothing did.

Nobody spoke to him, and the operating light – a reminder to the captive, nothing more – on the camera remained unwaveringly active.

Eventually, cursing himself mentally, Avon rose and input the problem’s solution before stepping back, tense.

A panel slid over the console again, and then the whole section of the wall rose upwards, leaving an open doorway.

Avon approached it cautiously, but there were no guard to jump him, nothing shooting at him. Just an empty room – empty, except for the chair bolted to the floor in front of a more complex computer terminal, and Avon’s boots, sitting on the floor right by the door. If it hadn’t been obvious before, it was now. They were playing games with him.

Avon cautiously moved into the room, and jumped when the door slammed shut behind him, locking him in a single room once more.

“Well done,” came his captor’s voice.

“I don’t play games,” Avon snarled, looking for and not finding any cameras here. “What do you want from me?”

“Have a look on the console. I promise you, you’ll find it more interesting than the entry level problems the door sets.”

”I’m not in the habit of collaborating with the people who kidnap me at gunpoint,” Avon said, and busied himself by pulling his boots back on. He couldn’t check for the probe in his heel without knowing whether and from where he was being watched and risk revealing it – but he had a feeling that it would be gone, anyway.

“I want to work _with_ you, Kerr Avon. Granted, my methods have been a bit… unorthodox, so far, but I had to be sure that you would hear me out, and I couldn’t do that with Blake looming over your shoulder. It will be worth your while, I promise.”

Avon was almost tempted to laugh. “Forgive me if I’m not in a very trusting mood.”

“Science for science’s sake, Avon. That is my aim and motive, nothing more, nothing less. I think you will find my work interesting.”

“Who are you?”

“My name wouldn’t mean anything to you – the Federation have seen to that.” For the first time, there was a break in the polite friendliness of his captor, all-too-familiar frustration laid plain. It could all be an act, of course. The man had probably read Avon’s file. “All I ask, Avon, is that you take a look. If you insist on returning to the _Liberator_ afterwards, I am sure I will be able to arrange it.”

It wasn’t as if Avon had any choice. He considered telling him that but refrained, walking stiffly to the desk and sitting down. No chains sprang up from the chair to restrain him, which was at least something.

The screen activated at his touch and instantly began flooding with information. Avon’s attention was caught within the first paragraphs, despite himself. AI technology – work building on his own treatise on the insurmountable limits of computers, limits that even Orac had: a capacity to function within programmed parameters, and only within programmed parameters. Even the most advanced computer systems, the ones that learned and developed couldn’t subvert their programming, couldn’t overcome the fact that they _had_ been programmed – they had been given the ability to learn, and they were doing so, but to ascribe them a personality, a free will based on it was faulty logic. Avon had never fancied following the idea to its logical conclusion – to pursue the question of _free will_ in biological beings – nor had he had the inclination to try and break those limits in computers.

For a computer, Orac had the most free agency that Avon had ever encountered, and it had given them nothing but trouble. But the idea was fascinating as it was terrifying. A machine that could make real choices, whose only limit was its physical components…

Of course, the Federation had always been more interested in the opposite – the ability to control, to programme even human beings as if they were just another system component. There wouldn’t have been any funding for this project in the Federation, even if Avon had decided to pursue it – even if Avon had not been told, in no uncertain terms, that the treatise he had published contained ideas that the Federation considered dangerous, and that he would find himself under close watch by Central Security should he insist on pursuing the subject further.

Evidently, his captor had taken the issue to its natural conclusion – if the work was impossible in the Federation, one would have to do it outside of it.

And if the data Avon was being given was real, they had made advances – developing a computer that could rival Orac in its decision-making, if not in its reach. They were on the brink of taking it further, of giving a computer the ability to choose to rewrite its own programming.

Avon _was_ fascinated. “All right,” he said, when the information on the screen began to go into minutiae. “I’m interested.”

“I’m glad,” came the immediate response. His captor had been waiting. “We know the risks, of course – we’re in the process of developing a timed failsafe, and the machine will have to be unable to stop it – do you think it will spoil the experiment?”

“If you did it without the failsafe, I would walk out,” Avon said, looking back down at the screen. Science for science’s sake…

“We thought your experience with the most advanced AIs that we know of could help us take the final step. Ensor’s work was always groundbreaking, and the rumours around Orac… But ours…” The man trailed off on a note of awe.

They might be creating a new lifeform.

Avon inhaled deeply. If anyone had asked the others on the _Liberator_ whether Avon had a concept of beauty, they would probably have laughed. But the programming, the computer that these people were developing, if the data was real… “Even Orac only functions within parameters. It is very aware of its limitations, though it doesn’t like to admit to them.”

“ _Like_?”

Avon wasn’t surprised that the man had picked up on his phrasing – he would have, if he was what he claimed to be. “Ensor overlaid his own personality into the programme. Very close…”

“But not quite.”

“No.”

“Will you help us? We are safe from the Federation here, and our facilities are the best you will find. Of course, the work will have to be kept secret.”

Avon thought of Blake and his crusade. Sometimes, Blake could make it seem as if the fight against the Federation was the only goal there was – and perhaps it was, for him. Avon had always known Blake was being foolish, but he had had no better options, nor any better offers. Until now.

There was no real reason why the choice should be difficult. Avon had always known that he would abandon Blake’s Cause and all the rest of them if he was given a sustainable chance elsewhere. Besides, Blake’s cause was a meaningless blip in history compared to this – the greatest advance in computer science since… well, probably since its inception. Nobody had ever done anything that compared.

“Well, Avon?”

Avon pulled himself out of his thoughts, realising that there was someone waiting for his response. “Yes. I’ll work with you. But I will need to see proof that this work really has been done.”

“Of course, it will be my pleasure to show you.”

“I will also have to contact the _Liberator_ :”

“If that is your condition.”

“Blake has a habit of feeling responsible for the people who walked with him.” It was true enough – but it was also a test. Whoever these supposed scientists were, Avon and they hadn’t exactly started out in the most trust-inspiring manner. But if he were given the freedom to leave, if he so chose, Avon might decide to forget the rough handling. “If I don’t contact them, Blake will never leave us in peace.”

The other man laughed. “All right. Meet me in the corridor.”

Perfectly on cue, a section of the wall slid aside, revealing a well-lit corridor. A woman hurried past, not paying Avon any attention.

Avon rose, approaching the door with caution. If the work was real, he would have to start trusting these people, to a point. He would start believing it when he had seen it and been allowed to speak to Blake. That the man hadn’t shot the idea down was encouraging, but Avon wasn’t a fool.

The man waited for Avon in the corridor, looking far more like a scientist now than he had in the alleyway, surrounded by thugs with guns. “Avon.” He held out his hand, smiling. “I’m glad we’re finally able to meet properly. I apologise for the means of getting you here, I realise it can’t have left the best impression.”

“There _is_ a price on my head,” Avon said, not taking the hand.

“You will be safe from the Federation here. They probably wouldn’t mind locking me back up, either. My name is Mik Scanlan, but that probably means nothing to you. Your name will raise some heads around here, of course – your work has been invaluable in our efforts.”

Mik Scanlan – distantly, Avon remembered having read the name, somewhere... Ah. “The Federation forcefully terminated your research at the Science Centre on Mars four years ago.”

Scanlan beamed. “Ah, you keep up with the field, I see.”

Avon had been working in the security sector, then, though not entirely by choice. Of course, if he hadn’t, he would never have thought of attempting the bank fraud, would never have ended up sentenced to deportation, would never have met Blake, nor, more importantly, have had the chance to work on Zen and Orac. Sometimes, Avon regretted that he couldn’t show up at scientific conferences without being recognised, arrested and, eventually, executed. “I try.”

“Yes – it must be difficult, I understand.” Scanlan nodded sagely, though frustration gleamed in his eyes. “The Federation wouldn’t tolerate my research – _this_ research. I had always wondered why _you_ had never followed it up, but I think I know now. None of us here are great friends of the Federation. Walk with me?”

Avon fell in step beside him. “We shouldn’t wait too long before contacting Blake.”

“Of course, but first…”

They rounded a corner, and Avon found himself in a room full of computer banks. Their components were makeshift, likely a collection of whatever material they had been able to lay hands on, but even at a glance, their design was breathtakingly beautiful. Even at a glance, Avon could see the advances that had been detailed on the computer console, could see that the data _had_ been real.

Scanlan was a scientist – he hadn’t tried to package the work into an appealing form, hadn’t bowed to Ensor’s desire for small, neat, visually appealing circuits. He had let the project grow, take shape, take space as it needed.

There were several control stations; the woman Avon had seen earlier observing on one of them, but otherwise they were alone with the machine. The AI computer they would turn into the first truly _created_ artificial lifeform. 

“Kerr Avon, meet Omega,” Scanlan said behind him, and Avon checked his steps towards the computer, turning back to keep an eye on him. But Scanlan’s gaze was on the computer – Avon wondered whether, just a moment ago, the awe on his face had been mirrored on his own.

“Omega?” he asked.

Scanlan tore his gaze away, smiling at Avon. “We thought of calling her ‘Alpha’, but the word has… connotations, as I’m sure you appreciate. _Omega_ was just as fitting. The be-all and end-all of computer science. But I’m getting ahead of myself – as of now, _she_ is merely an _it_. I hope you will help us change that.”

Avon nodded, itching to sit at one of the consoles and see what Omega could do, how far the project had really come.

“Here.” Scanlan walked to the nearest console, activating it. “Place your hand on the screen – it will register your palm print in the system. I will have the cameras removed and the rooms we came from fitted as your quarters. Our supplies are limited, but we do have some creature comforts. Besides, it will put you nearer to Omega than my own rooms, which I’m sure you’ll appreciate.”

Avon registered his palm print, forcefully tearing his eyes away from the computer.

Scanlan rapidly worked the console. “I have sent a message which I’m sure Orac will pick up in no time at all. Let’s head to the surface to meet them.”

 

Scanlan’s facility was underground, of course. The complex had a considerable size, though the space for its inhabitants, kitchen and recreation rooms, was limited – cell-like, as Avon had seen. It was no great surprise; Omega needed the space. Having seen it, Avon had thought the complex had to be underground – underground or in space, to be able to afford the space needed for the computer, and to maintain its secrecy.

Above ground, there was a jungle, likely the same one that Avon had scanned from on board the _Liberator_ before he and Blake had teleported down to the planet, only to be immediately intercepted by Scanlan’s men. Of course there had never really been a rebel cell looking for Blake’s help – only Scanlan, and his magnum opus.

The jungle was impassable on foot, and difficult to navigate in ground flyers – difficult to search and conquer. Of course, none of the dense growth of trees was an obstacle for the teleport. As a sign of faith, Scanlan had given Avon back his gun, though his bracelet had been left with Blake, and had left him alone to meet Blake.

Avon had walked a quick reconnaissance, but had found no hidden cameras or more thugs with guns. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it seemed too good to be true, but so far, Scanlan was true to his word. Avon had settled down on a bolder when figures finally shimmered into existence before him – Blake, Cally and Vila.

“Avon! Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Avon scanned Blake’s face. “Are you?”

“Yes, I wasn’t hurt. What is going on?”

“Good,” Avon said, ignoring the question for a moment. He wordlessly accepted the bracelet Vila held out to him – a reassurance, just in case. “I’m staying here, Blake.”

“What?”

“Why, Avon?” Cally asked.

“This is a scientific facility. You wouldn’t understand the work; suffice it to say it is something I would be working on if the Federation didn’t exist.”

“We are fighting the Federation,” Blake said. Not his most eloquent come-back.

Avon allowed himself a grin. “And I wish you luck. Don’t act surprised, Blake. I always made it clear that I wouldn’t stay if I had a better place to be.”

“Avon,” Vila said, making Avon look back at him. “Are you sure it’s not a trap?”

“I don’t think so. The work is real enough, I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” Avon held up the bracelet. “I’ll keep this, if you don’t mind – just in case. Well?”

Blake didn’t look happy. It was probably a good thing Cally and Vila had come down with him – he could hardly try and browbeat Avon into staying after he had declared so often and so publically that they were all free to leave if they so choose. But eventually Blake nodded. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Aren’t you coming back to the ship at all, get your things?” Vila again, practical enough. Avon might almost miss him.

“What things? The clothes we took from the storage? No, thank you.”

_Avon, are you sure?_ Cally asked, telepathically this time.

“I’m sure,” Avon said again. It no longer felt as if he were trying to convince himself. “Now it’s probably better for you to go. _Liberator_ shouldn’t linger in orbit.”

Avon hesitated on the surface for a little while after they had gone. He told himself that it was to make sure nothing suspicious happened. He ran his fingers over the bracelet clasped around his wrist. If he had wanted to, he could have turned his back on Omega and leave with Blake. There was nothing to suggest that he might have been stopped. Nothing had inhibited the teleport, nobody had held a gun to his head.

Avon told himself that he was being overly paranoid and that the unease would fade, with time.

 

He threw himself into the work.

The living areas were nothing spectacular, and the work was the best entertainment around if he didn’t want to spend his time socialising with the other scientists. He endured some introductory conversations – doubtless the company here was more intelligent than the one he had been keeping of late; Scanlan seemed to have attracted some truly clever minds. It wasn’t a surprise – even just grasping what they were trying to do required an uncommon amount of expertise. With these people, Avon thought, he could easily replicate Orac, if he had wanted to.

What they _were_ doing, of course, was much more fascinating than replicating Ensor’s work. This was new ground, truly new ground, and Avon was struggling to get used to being able to work on a project again without an eye on how it could be used for self-preservation, on how he could convince Blake that it was worthwhile – which, to Blake, had always meant that it helped them in their fight against the Federation. This – this was science for science’s sake.

And Avon enjoyed it, truly enjoyed it. After a few days, he stopped constantly looking over his shoulder, though he kept carrying the teleport bracelet, reluctant to leave it out of sight and unobserved. It wasn’t that he thought any of the scientists would find it interesting, or that he had to beware of thieves – even the thugs that Scanlan had used to… convince Avon to come with him had been hired, not personnel from the computer complex at all. Most people here were scientists with no criminal fibre in their bodies, and outside of the Federation only because it wouldn’t allow their work. The lack of politics was almost refreshing.

Orac would have been a useful research tool, but it was even more useful as a model. Even what little Avon had learned about its programming allowed the Omega project to progress in leaps and bounds, overcoming problems where they had previously been utterly stuck. Avon had always enjoyed solving other people’s problems for them, so long as it was understood that _he_ had the competence to do so.

If Avon found it difficult to let his guard down entirely, Scanlan seemed to trust him without reservation. More, he trusted Avon’s expertise. Avon couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had been able to work without having to justify and explain what he was doing. Possibly not since as far back as when he had first published the treatise that had inspired Scanlan, when he had been a young man working under the protective mantle of a powerful liberal university that the Federation had long since taken over.

Avon kept up with the news, in a casual fashion. Many of his co-workers had family on Federated worlds and were interested in the safety of those worlds. Others enjoyed news of the rebellion, as curated as it was through the propaganda channels. Avon found himself listening for indications of the _Liberator_ ’s activities and whereabouts, despite himself. It felt important, suddenly, that the _Liberator_ was out there, even though it had never felt like they were making much of a difference while he’d been standing on the flight deck with the others.

Even though Avon had every reassurance that the Omega project was currently safe from Federation influence – certainly his new co-workers would not be here if it had been otherwise - there was always a chance of it changing. Avon had long stopped believing in stability. If the Federation should overcome the wave of rebellion Blake’s activities had stirred up, their current freedom might be gone, sooner than Avon would like. And then, there would truly be nowhere left for him to go.

Of all the people working on the project with him, Avon found himself most in conversation with Scanlan, as their – previously – best with computers and of course initiator of the project, and Tara Merine, the female computer technician he had first seen in the complex. She had been classified Delta at birth, but had an outstanding, unconventional mind and a way of getting Avon out of the corners into which he thought himself. He refused to dwell on the fact that she reminded him of Vila, just as Scanlan, in a strange way, reminded him of Cally. Developing a kind of friendship with both scientists was almost too easy – Avon wasn’t one to make friends, but they expected little by the way of socialising, and were happy to talk about Omega at all hours, as was he.

A week passed, then two. They hit the first major stumbling block in the project and overcame it. Even Avon let himself get swept into the celebrations that night. They started the first real tests with Omega. Avon found himself having the first conversations with it – it didn’t have Orac’s access to knowledge, nor was it what it was meant to become – not yet. But already it was freer in its ‘personality’, less bound to any one creator. Already they could let it make small choices, to see whether it would, whether it could. As yet, it was all within programmed parameters, of course.

None of them was sure whether it could be done – whether Omega one day wouldn’t be bound by any programming. They would still have created an incredibly complex AI computer if they failed – but it would be failure nonetheless, not the milestone they were hoping for.

Avon had worked on expanding Omega’s data access. He was convinced that the project could be executed even with limited data access – after all, no human could ever hope to have Orac-like knowledge and could still choose. Fallibility was the price they paid, of course – though Avon was unconvinced that Orac was as infallible as it claimed to be. No matter – they weren’t building a supposedly infallible machine, they were creating something entirely new. Still, it could do no harm to let Omega share the things the facility’s human occupants had access to. It made for more interesting conversations, at any rate.

Avon had rapidly developed a reputation for working at odd hours, and was usually left to himself at night. He was happy enough to spend them in the company of Omega – if his work allowed him to keep it online.

“Avon?”

Avon looked up from his digital drawing board where he had been testing strings of code to observe the electrical impulses running through Omega. It didn’t have a visual reference point, and its voice was channelled through the internal communication circuits of the complex. It reminded everyone of the reality of what it was. Omega had rarely initiated conversation at first, but they had all been thrilled when it had started doing so. Another difference to Orac, who considered it below itself to ask questions.

“What is it?” Avon answered, laying the handheld aside.

“I have observed your interest in news reports and have cross-referenced it with your personal files.”

In moments as these, Avon had to remind himself that Omega was, still, a computer, and that it had been _he_ who had made sure that it was… curious, that it made use of accessible data even if not explicitly instructed to do so. It would have been impractical to keep his own personal files locked to Omega; he couldn’t expect it to obey human conventions around privacy. “Yes?”

“I have concluded that you oppose the Federation and still support the activities of Roj Blake, even though you have left the _Liberator_.”

“I wouldn’t say that I supported Blake’s activities,” Avon said, leaning back in the chair and wondering what Omega would make of that, “but I do oppose the Federation.”

“Why, then, do you work with Mik Scanlan, who has been in daily contact with Space Command Headquarters?”

For a moment, Avon hoped that he had misheard. Omega hadn’t yet grasped the concept of lying – of _choosing_ to withhold information, though it was learning to _choose_ to volunteer it. Avon had only given it access to the complex’s monitoring systems yesterday – Tara had assisted him, but he hadn’t told Scanlan; they worked as a team, he didn’t have to report on his work beyond keeping everyone up to speed on Omega’s development. Scanlan wouldn’t have had to hide his transmissions before now. They weren’t under surveillance, not here.

“Are you sure?” Avon asked, trying to keep calm. It was a nonsensical question, of course.

“I have observed–”

“Yes,” Avon cut it off. Someone might overhear. “I didn't have this information.”

Too good to be true, after all. Avon looked at Omega’s circuits, bitter regret curdling in his stomach. _Science for science’s sake_ , indeed. Well, he couldn’t let it continue, but he needed Omega’s help, first. He pushed the handheld to the side, activating the console proper.

“Avon.”

Avon stopped at the sound of the voice behind him. His hand moved to his bracelet out of habit, but it was useless – the _Liberator_ wasn’t in orbit to whisk him away at the press of a button. He turned, finding Scanlan in the door, a gun in hand. Scanlan looked almost apologetic.

“Step away from the console.”

“Or you’ll shoot me?”

Scanlan’s lips curled and his gun shifted – pointing at Omega’s exposed circuits. “I’d rather you didn’t make me. You know I know exactly where to aim. We will rebuild it, even if we have to force you at gunpoint to help us.”

Avon stood, stepping away from the console. “This seems a very convoluted trap for just one of Blake’s crew.”

“This isn’t about you, Avon. I couldn’t do it, alone. I didn’t have the funds to create Omega. But I needed to try it. You understand, don’t you?”

“You signed Omega over to the Federation. Every development we made, every progress belongs to them. They will turn her into a machine of _war_ , Scanlan.” Avon couldn’t bring himself to care that he started to sound like Blake.

“But she will exists! Without the Federation, none of this could have been done!”

“This project was about _free will_. That’s the whole reason the Federation banned it in the first place! How much free will, do you think, will Omega have under the control of the Federation? All you have done is given them a supercomputer to rival Orac!” And Avon had helped, and helped willingly. He ought to turn, to destroy Omega. It would only take a few keystrokes. Even if Scanlan was a better shot than Avon suspected, he would be finished before he could die. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it, warring with himself even as Scanlan’s gun waved aimlessly. Oh, how amused Vila would have been if he could see Avon now – willing to sacrifice everything to save the life of something that wasn’t alive, not yet. To save a computer.

“Omega wouldn’t even exist without the Federation!” Scanlan argued, a desperate, fanatic edge to his voice. “Avon, I’m sorry that I pulled you into this, but we needed you – you saw that we needed you. I didn’t mean for you to know. I wasn’t going to hand you over – I would have made you leave, once it was all finished. The Federation don’t even know you’re here.” Scanlan’s gun came back to point at Avon’s chest. “Can’t we forget this happened? We’re so _close_ , Avon.”

Better to have done this while Scanlan was aiming away, but… “I can’t let you, Scanlan.”

Avon spun around, but the console was further away than he had thought. Scanlan’s shot impacted with his back, and everything went black.

 

Avon’s awaking was groggy and painful – limbs buzzing with the residual charge of a stun bolt. He knew he’d failed even before he felt the cuff fastened around each of his wrists, chaining him to the surface he was lying on. From the feel of it, it was one of the complex’s foam mattresses, but it felt far from comfortable now.

Avon opened his eyes, staring up at a blank ceiling. He pulled at his wrist experimentally. The short chain between the each cuff and bolt at the side of the bed gave him some small range of movement, but it wasn’t enough to be able to do much of anything. These weren’t Federation handcuffs – they were medical restraints, foam-padded cuffs fitted tightly around his wrists. Even if he had had Vila’s skill with locks and slipping out of restraints, he wouldn’t have been able to get out of these. His legs were free, but that did him little good. Perhaps, if he contorted himself, he’d be able to sit up, but there seemed to be little point in it. His teleport bracelet, of course, was gone, not that it would have been of any use. He wasn’t in his own rooms, either – no convenient access to Omega’s voice channel, wherever this was.

Avon looked around, trying to see behind him. There was a persistent sound – Omega’s servers? He was in the small maintenance room behind Omega’s systems!

And he wasn’t alone.

“I’m sorry, Avon.” Scanlan sounded and looked sorry, too. The gun was tucked behind his belt, and his hands were shaking as they hovered over a set of computer probes.

“If you think you can torture me into giving in, you’re mistaken,” Avon told him. He swallowed hard against the regret, trying to concentrate on keeping alive.

“I’m not,” Scanlan said, and Avon recognised, with surprise, a note of scientific zeal in his voice. “But I can’t let you go, or let you anywhere near Omega again. But my scientific contact in the Federation gave me an idea; and idea how we can progress Omega to the next stage. Only I never had a volunteer.”

“You still don’t,” Avon spat, fear curling up his spine. Mik Scanlan’s desire to see Omega become what it was meant to be overrode all other considerations, overrode even his common sense. Avon had known that, to a point – one had to be a little insane to run from the Federation to pursue a scientific project of this magnitude, and to attempt to recruit Avon the way he had. Only Scanlan hadn’t really run, or hadn’t run far enough – he didn’t even realise just how much of a Federation slave he really was. In many ways, that made him more dangerous than any of the Federation’s finest professional torturers.

With forced calm, Avon said, “Let me contact the _Liberator_. We have funds – we might be able to relocate the project, free from Federation influence.”

Scanlan proceeded as though he hadn’t heard. “You’d like the idea, Avon, if you could look at it objectively. You’ll see.”

“ _What_ idea?”

“Biomechanical systems,” Scanlan said, and moved properly into Avon’s field of vision. He’d been working on a sensory net, held loosely in his hands. It was a monitoring device – to observe the functions of the human brain, the biological electrical currents that had always amused Avon. How like a computer, with its circuits driven by the very same electricity. The term ‘sensory net’ was misleading, of course – though the Federation had certainly appropriated the technology to assault their victims’ senses. It _was_ the closest thing to a link between the human brain and mechanical circuits, and it was only too clear what Scanlan intended.

“No!” Avon said, scrambling for a more coherent argument.

Scanlan crouched down at his side, well out of reach of Avon’s hands. “Think, Avon! You will be closer to Omega than any of us could ever be. I’d been thinking of doing it myself.”

“Scanlan, you _can’t_. Biomechanical systems already exist – they haven’t been tried on AIs, granted, but once you introduce biological components to Omega, you won’t be able to remove them. It will defeat the whole purpose. We were – we _are_ creating a purely mechanical lifeform; that is the _point_. Don’t be a fool! If you do this, you will destroy the work of everyone here – _your_ work.”

But Scanlan wasn’t listening. “You’re not thinking clearly, Avon. _Your_ brain will teach Omega to choose.”

Avon yanked at the restraints, painfully aware of the futility. “Just stop to think before you do this just to be rid of me!”

“I told you – I have thought about this for a while, before I even met you, when we were really stuck.” Scanlan pushed him flat simply by leaning his weight onto Avon’s shoulder, and proceeded to fasten the sensory net, affixing the contacts to Avon’s temples no matter how much he tossed his head. It was impossible to dislodge, even as Scanlan stepped back. “I could have done it while you were unconscious, but I thought you wanted to experience it. The ultimate aim, Avon. Becoming one with our computer.”

“Go to hell.” This was it. When Avon’d thought about dying, this wasn’t what he had imagined – lately, he’d thought a Federation gun or blowing up with the _Liberator_ was likely to do it – nothing like this, not since the Federation had threatened him with mutoid modification. He closed his eyes, blocking out the feverish shine in Scanlan’s eyes as he leant over him, adjusting something behind Avon’s head.

 “I’ll make sure your name will be remembered – Omega will remember,” Scanlan said softly.

At first, there was only a light tingling sensation – like static electricity making his hair stand on end. Then, there was a powerful surge of pressure, of indescribable pain, and Avon lost himself.

 

Just as suddenly, he was back. No real thought, no real sensation, not yet, but awareness. Awareness of who he was, and of what had happened. Tentatively, thoughts formed. _I must be dreaming._ Only he knew that he wasn’t; but his thoughts had the same quality as in a dream. There were images, too, fleeting pictures that could only exist in his mind. He couldn’t wake up, but somehow he felt safe. When everything faded again, Avon wasn’t afraid.

 

The blinding headache woke him. He couldn’t remember ever having had a headache as intense, and he’d had his fair share. He opened his eyes and instantly regretted it – the light seemed to pierce straight into his skull. Uncoordinatedly, he flung an arm over his eyes, swallowing against nausea, even as the lights suddenly dimmed.

“Sorry about that. You’re back with us, then?”

Avon stilled and chanced a look. “Vila?” His throat closed up immediately, and Avon turned onto his side, coughing painfully.

Vila’s hand appeared in his field of vision, holding a glass with a straw. “Here. This’ll help.”

Avon drank a few swallows, too exhausted to care that he was sipping through a straw, that he could barely move his body the way he wanted it to. The water helped.

“Doesn’t look like it was much fun, being a computer,” Vila said, his lips curling a little as if he was making a joke, but his eyes remained serious.

“What happened?”

“Your mad scientist friends hooked your brain up to the supercomputer you were building down there. I always say there’s a fine line between madness and genius.”

“You’d know,” Avon said, struggling to sit up. Vila didn’t offer his help, though his hands hovered by Avon’s shoulder to keep him from falling, if necessary.

He grinned. “Never thought I’d be glad to have _you_ back.”

“The feeling is mutual. What _happened_?” They were in Avon’s cabin, on the _Liberator_. Avon could feel the comforting hum of the engines through his mattress, could hear the long-familiar whir of the air recycling. He had no idea how he’d got here, how long he’d been here – how long it was since Scanlan had activated the link. Avon’d been on his own then – the _Liberator_ had been nowhere near the planet, the bracelet useless. There hadn’t been time to send a message. “Don’t tell me Scanlan had a change of heart.”

“I don’t think so. Orac picked up some computer message, saying you were in trouble, with teleport coordinates. So we went in and got you out. It was easy, there was nobody there. Don’t even know why they’d strapped you down, you certainly weren’t up to moving. We got you up here, and finally Orac said you were all fixed up, so we moved you from the medical unit a few hours ago.”

Avon pulled at the blanket tangled around his legs, sitting on the edge of the bed. His balance was shot.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Flight deck,” Avon ground out, somehow coming to his feet. “The complex is still down there.”

“So what? Revenge for what they did to you? Thought you’d like being a computer. If not for the message, we’d have thought you’d volunteered.”

Avon really wasn’t in the mood. He started walking even though his vision swam, talking over his shoulder, “Scanlan works for the Federation. I need… Blake to destroy Omega before they can get their hands on her.”

Vila hurried after him. “Omega? Her? What are you talking about!?”

Avon was glad that he would be able to blame his pronoun use on the headache, but he knew that he had meant it, had known full well what he was saying.

Cally spotted him the moment he stepped onto the flight deck, even with everyone’s attention on the view screen, where the planet, Omega’s planet, hung in space. “Avon! You should be in bed!”

Blake, who stood at the front of the flight deck, turned around. “What are you doing?”

Avon steadied himself against the bulkhead, giving up on making his way to his station – but he didn’t even get a word out.

“Blake! Something’s happening down there!” Jenna, at the helm, exclaimed.

“What?”

“Looks like an evacuation! Lots of energy signatures – ground flyers.”

“Why would they evacuate the computer complex?” Blake asked – and got his answer a moment later.

The explosion was clearly visible even from space, tearing a large chunk into the jungle on the central continent, a horrible, bright flare of light.

The sudden pain in Avon’s chest had nothing to do with his physical state.

“What the hell?” Blake asked, with his usual astute cleverness.

Avon didn’t have the energy to point that out. Vila was steering him into the chair at his station, and he didn’t protest that, either, eyes fixed on the view screen and the fires that the explosion had ignited. They would soon die down; they had been so careful when they set up the charges – just enough to destroy the computer without chance of recovery, minimising the damage to the environment where they could. It would take a while for the crater to grow over, of course. A scar that would take years to heal. It seemed fitting.

“I have a message for Kerr Avon,” Orac, settled on its usual table at the front of the flight deck, suddenly stated in its customary brisk tone.

“Go ahead, Orac,” Avon said, his own voice sounding foreign in his ears.

“It was very short. _Farewell, Kerr Avon_.”

Avon closed his eyes, focussing on his breathing. He didn’t allow himself to cry, not here, not even with the headache to blame. “Thank you, Orac.”

“Avon,” Blake said, sounding suddenly very close. Avon opened his eyes to find him standing just in front of Avon’s console, his face gentle. For once, Avon believed that the sentiment was real. “Do you know what happened down there?”

“We were working on a computer that would, could… was supposed to develop free will.”

“Like Orac, you mean?” Vila chimed from his elbow.

“No. Not like Orac. Orac functions within in programmed parameters. Like you, or me. A new, mechanical, computerised lifeform,” Avon said, and closed his eyes again, blocking out what he could still see of the fires behind Blake’s back. He couldn’t remember what it had been like, to be linked up with Omega, just a blank section in his memory, a chunk of time missing. There was only that one memory, the dream that had given him back his identity – and he couldn’t even be sure whether that had come after he had been rescued. “Scanlan had named her Omega.”

“ _Her_?” echoed Jenna, but Avon ignored her.

“But they were stuck. So he recruited me. With my experience with Orac and Zen, we were making progress. We could have done it, Blake – within a year we could have created something that never existed before. Of course, a computer with the capacity to subvert its programming in this way could be incredible dangerous, so we made sure there was a failsafe.”

“ _That_ was the failsafe?” Vila asked, incredulous, pointing at the viewscreen.

“Yes.”

“But if the goal was to create a computer-based lifeform–” Blake began.

Avon found himself smiling, staring past Blake, not really seeing anything at all. “Why did Scanlan introduce a biological component? He was working with the Federation, Blake. To fund Omega, he signed her over to the Federation. I believe he never meant to harm _me_ – but I had programmed Omega to receive the complex’s monitoring data. She observed him contacting Space Command and told me about it. Scanlan overheard. Omega was his obsession. He wanted to see her become what she was meant to be, and he couldn’t let me go, nor let me stay, not with what I knew. So he decided to cut a corner he shouldn’t have cut.” _I should have destroyed her_ , Avon thought, _when I had the chance._ Before Scanlan could do what he had done. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He would never know, now…

“Then who send us that message? You weren’t in control, were you, hooked up to that machine? And who blew up the complex after we rescued you, for that matter? And why?” Vila asked. Sometimes, he displayed a curiosity that Avon could appreciate, under different circumstances.

“The message came from a computerised entity named Omega,” Orac supplied tersely, “As I would have informed you, had you cared to ask. _Of course_ Avon wasn’t capable of taking any action. Omega preserved Avon’s consciousness long enough for you to rescue him, and has now initiated self-destruction.”

“A computer chose to kill itself?” Jenna laughed, incredulous. “Not even Zen could do that.”

“Omega wasn’t just a computer,” Avon snapped, then forced himself into silence. Omega had overheard, of course – had heard every word Avon had said to Scanlan in the control room, perhaps had heard even what they had said in the maintenance room. But he would never know whether she had chosen – whether she had _chosen_ to save his life, to contact Blake and to commit suicide to avoid the Federation, and the imprisonment it would have brought, before or _after_ Scanlan had linked her to Avon’s brain. He would never know whether they had succeeded. The odds were against Scanlan’s makeshift link succeeding on the first attempt to join an AI and a human brain, but the odds that they had succeeded in what they had been trying to do, that they had created a computerised being that could _chose_ freely, that _would_ chose freedom over imprisonment, that would comprehend these concepts on a personal level, and that could destroy itself to enforce that choice… that could chose to die rather than live imprisoned... Those odds were astronomical.

_A computerised entity_ , Orac had said.

“Blake,” Jenna said suddenly, “we’re being hailed from the planet. One of the flyers; it’s just cleared the blast zone.”

“Put it through, Jenna.”

“ _… calling the_ Liberator. _This is Tara Merine calling the_ Liberator. _Please respond._ ”

“This is the _Liberator_ ,” Blake said.

“ _Oh, thank heavens. Is Avon there?_ ”

“I’m here, Tara,” Avon responded, but couldn’t bring himself to speak with the professional briskness Tara no doubt expected.

“ _Avon! I’m sorry, I had no idea what had happened! Omega… she told me – she told us to evacuate, and destroyed herself._ ” Tara understood, of course – even if Avon hadn’t worked as many hours with her, the sadness in her voice told him all he needed to know.

“Yes, I know,” he said simply.

“ _I think Mik was still in the complex_.”

“He was working for the Federation, Tara.”

“ _Omega told me. I’m sorry for what he did, Avon. We never would have… I’m glad you’re with friends._ ”

Avon felt the other staring at him and refused to comment.

“ _I suppose this is goodbye?_ ”

“Yes. Scanlan’s staff records will have blown up with the complex – stay out of the Federation’s way, Tara.”

“ _We will. Perhaps we’ll begin again, somewhere. Perhaps, one day, we’ll succeed. Goodbye, Avon. And good luck._ ”

“Good luck,” Avon murmured, even as the communication’s link went dead.

“I like her,” Vila announced into the oppressive silence that threatened to settle over the flight deck. “Who was she?”

“Tara Merine, an outstanding computer technician.” Avon glanced over at him. “And a Delta grade. You _would_ like her.” He averted his gaze again, accidentally meeting Blake’s eyes, and immediately dropped his gaze down to his console where his hands lay, clasped tightly together as if that could hide their shaking.

“Avon,” Cally said gently behind him. “You should lie down. Your body and mind have been through a massive shock.”

“Yes.” Avon stood from his console and walked out. He was relieved when only Cally trailed him into the corridor and fell into step with him.

“Are you all right, Avon?” she asked. She certainly didn’t mean his physical state, and Avon had the feeling that, normally, she would have telepathed – but his brain might not be able to handle it, just now. Certainly the headache hadn’t faded.

Avon swallowed hard. “Not particularly.”

“It is all right to grieve,” she said.

Avon’s lips twitched into a grimace. “For a computer?”

“Even if she was only that, she meant something to you – you were part of her, for a while.” 

They stopped at Avon’s cabin, and he keyed open the door, moving automatically. 

“We’re glad to have you back, Avon. Don’t force yourself to be less than she was,” Cally said as he stepped inside.

The door fell shut, locking her out. Avon stood staring at the closed door for a long time.


End file.
